"My stations win by taking females out. Sometimes that’s enough to go from the number three station to the number one station in a market."

Said country music consultant Keith Hill, who has advised stations to play fewer songs by female artists. Criticized for discriminating against women, Hill wields metaphor and irony:

Metaphor: "They’re just not the lettuce in our salad. The lettuce is Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton, Keith Urban and artists like that. The tomatoes of our salad are the females."

Irony: "In a deep irony, it’s the demand of female listeners who aren’t thinking about it. They’re just responding to that flow of song after song, and if that mix has more females in it, they turn off quicker."

ADDED: Country songs are meant to stir you on an emotional level. I prefer a male voice. It's a sexual orientation! If that's sex discrimination, it's not the bad kind of discrimination.